


Thunder

by inkandpaperhowl



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 21:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5107061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandpaperhowl/pseuds/inkandpaperhowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wants to tell her that the restless song in his bones is the same one in her, that he feels the song in her even now, and that's how he knows she still loves him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thunder

**Author's Note:**

> Anon on tumblr asked me for post-s3 angst. I hope this is what they were expecting...

He watches her on the docks, making ready to raid, the wind dragging her hair across her face like the persistent tug of the promise of the sea. He feels it, too, the constant restless need to be anywhere but where he is right now, the nervous energy pulling him every which way--but always toward her. He doesn’t look away when she turns and catches him staring. He never does. 

She smiles, and there’s a rumble of thunder somewhere in the distance. 

Ever since Paris, she smiles as if she knows something he doesn’t, as if she’s been let in on a great secret and she’s not sharing. It’s his favorite of her smiles; close-lipped and sly, and the glimmer in her bright eyes that accompanies it takes his breath away. She saunters--there’s not another word to describe the way she walks, all hips and shoulders and cloak flowing behind her--across the dock to him, and raises her eyebrows, smile widening. 

“You keep your eyes on me like that, your wife will get jealous.” 

He shrugs, turning to look over his shoulder to where Aslaug stands on the beach, holding Ivar as always. She’s frowning. He makes a face. 

“Maybe I don’t care,” he says, leaning toward her, his thumbs hooked into his belt so that he will not reach out to her, will not touch her, will not take her face in his rough hands and press his lips against hers, will not bury his fingers in her hair, tangling with the chains braided there--

She doesn’t push him away or step back or lean away from him; she holds her ground, and there’s a rumble of thunder somewhere in the distance. 

His thumbs come unhooked from his belt. 

“I know that you heard what I said to you,” she says, her voice barely louder than the lapping waves beneath their feet. The wind almost whips them away from her lips before he hears them. His hands stop moving toward her and he leans back, reeling, eyebrows raised, head tilting to one side. 

“I hear many things that you say.” He pretends to not know what she means. 

She smiles the knowing, secret smile, and laughs. She walks away from him, swinging easily off the dock and going to their son, taking her granddaughter in her arms so that Bjorn can take his shield to the boats. Neither of them want him to come--they’ve discussed how it would be better if he stayed, if he watched his daughter grow, if little Siggy had a father who stayed when he needed her. But they also know that he is their son, and that he is young, and that his blood sings the same song that lives in their bones, and that he will raid and they cannot stop him. So she kisses her granddaughter and places her gently in Helga’s arms, and follows her son to the boats. 

She glances back to where he has not moved, where he has watched her through all of this, and somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbles. 

\----

The storm hits them several days out to sea, when they’ve lost sight of land and only know south by the position of the sun. He strains to see her, but her ship is too far away, and the wind hauls sheets of spray up between them as if it’s raising a sail made of water. They row, fighting the swells, fighting the wind, fighting the gods themselves, perhaps, for the right to stay alive. 

She appears in the stern of her ship, hair plastered to her face but the wet, her hand strong on the tiller as she steers through the storm, and he thinks that this is the last time he will see her. She looks behind her, seeking the white sail of his ship against the dark clouds. He longs to dive into the waves and swim to her, he longs to grow wings and fly through the sky to her, he longs to stand beside her in the stern of the ship, his hand over hers on the tiller, both feeling the song the ship sings as she skims the tops of the waves, both feeling the song in the other. But he cannot reach her, and he thinks that he will never reach her again.

He keeps his eyes on her. 

He puts his hand to his own tiller, turns to follow her into the trough between to high waves, and prays to Odin, to Freya, to Thor that they both make it out of this alive. 

\----

They make camp outside Paris, they send scouts to find Rollo, they stand together under the sail-canvas ceiling of the shelter they’ve put up as it begins to rain, and his hand seeks hers in the dark. She doesn’t pull her hand away from his, and there’s a rumble of thunder somewhere in the distance. 

“I heard what you said to me,” he says, and his voice is no louder than the patter of raindrops on the canvas. 

She raises her eyebrow, turning to look at him, her free hand seeking his face in the dark. She runs her fingers along his cheekbone, along his jaw, along his lips. The rumble of thunder grows louder. 

“And what are you going to do about it?”

“I have not yet decided.” Her fingers stop. She drops his hand. The thunder recedes. He sighs, throwing his head back and falling away from her. There’s a shout from outside; Rollo is coming. He ducks out into the rain, but her hand on his shoulder stops him. Her eyes are dark and angry and hungry and lonely and independent and terrifying. He wants nothing more than look into those eyes forever. 

“Decide soon,” she says, voice quiet, but demanding. “I am not going to wait forever.” 

He laughs. “Of course you are.” He leaves her as she once left him, smoldering, alone. He resists the urge to look back at her. He’s tired of resisting. He feels her eyes on him, and there’s a rumble of thunder somewhere in the distance. 

\----

Last year, he was baptized in water by the Christians, when he thought what he wanted forever was Athelstan. 

Today, he is baptized in blood by Odin, knowing that what he wants forever is Lagertha. 

He wants her anger. He wants her to fight him because he won’t let her come raiding with him to the west for the first time, because she refuses to take no for an answer, because she’s going to get what she wants even if she has to rip it from him with her teeth. He wants her to hate him because he had sons by a woman he does not love, because she was jealous, because she loves him so much she can’t stand the sight of him anymore. He wants her fiery rage and her icy disdain. He wants her to love him. He wants her to never have stopped loving him. He wants her to never stop loving him. 

He wants to love her, and never have stopped loving her, and to never stop loving her. 

He wants his fingers tangling in the chains braided into her hair, and his lips pressed against her throat, and his body curled into the curve of hers. He wants her eyes on him, her hands on him, her lips on him. He wants his eyes to drink in all of her, to never look away from her. He wants her to ride him like she rides the storms at sea. 

He wants to watch her fighting, to see the strength of her back, of her arms as she lashes out with her sword, with her shield. He wants to stand beside her in the shieldwall, hear her breath coming faster in anticipation, feel her heart beat faster in anticipation, feel the power of her voice as she shouts commands. He wants to fight with her, back to back, against impossible odds, and win. 

He wants to beg for her forgiveness. 

He wants to tell her that the restless song in his bones is the same one in her, that the need to grow, to raid, to be more than what they are is something they've always shared, something they gave to their son, something that binds them together, that makes their family strong. He wants to tell her that he feels the song in her even now, and that's how he knows she still loves him. 

He wants to tell her that he did all this for her, that he became Earl, became King for her, that he conquered the world for her. He wants to tell her that he sailed west so that he could take her with him, so that they could discover England together, as she always dreamed. He wants to tell her that he breached the walls of Paris so that he could give her the city as a gift, because she deserved it, because she deserved more than this. He wants to tell her he never meant for any of this to happen, that he would have been content to stay an unknown farmer if it meant that he could still be her husband and have her love. He wants to tell her that he will not sleep with any other women in Kattegat. 

He wants to tell her that, yes, that is another way of saying that he loves her. 

He wants to tell her that he loves her. 

There is so much blood, and his side aches to a cold numbness, and there is so much blood, and thunder rumbles somewhere in the distance. 

“Ragnar.” Her voice is quiet, worried, strained, close by. He blinks heavily, and it’s a chore to open his eyes again after they’ve closed. “Ragnar, keep your eyes on me,” she says, and her hands are on his face, warm and calloused and desperate. She turns his head until he’s looking at her, and the darkness clears from his eyes as he catches sight of hers. 

Her eyes are bright, and angry, and there are tears trailing tracks through the blood on her cheeks. Thunder rumbles above them. 

“Keep your eyes on me,” she says again, and he smiles and tries to tell her that he will never look away, if only that would make her happy. 

His hand gropes blindly for his axe. Her mouth sets itself in a grim line as she pulls it from the dead man next to him and places it gently in his hand. 

“You are not smiling as if you know a secret I do not,” he says, and his voice sounds very far away. “That’s all you’ve done since we conquered Paris.” 

She smiles now, but it’s a sad smile, a shadow of the one he’s looking for. It doesn’t reach her eyes. “You know all my secrets. You always have.”

“Perhaps not all,” he says, coughing. 

“You heard what I said.”

“Say it again.” 

Thunder crashes overhead. 

“Odin will take you to Valhalla, where you belong. And we will be together.” She pauses, leaning forward and pressing her lips to his forehead. “And we will love one another,” she whispers. He sighs, closing his eyes. 

“We never stopped,” he murmurs. The thunder explodes into rain, and he opens his eyes to see her for the last time. 

\----


End file.
